Tag: The National Museum of American History

I’m sorry that these photos are a little out of season, but I enjoyed my late September visit to the Smithsonian Institution’s Butterfly Habitat Garden so much that I still wanted to share them.

The garden is a long corridor between the National Mall and Independence Avenue. It’s bordered by very busy 9th Street, N.W., on one side and the parking lot of the National Museum of Natural History on the other.

Stepping inside, however, you feel enveloped in another world — particularly in early fall, when many of the plants are at their fullest and tallest.

The entrance on the National Mall.

I really like the simple hardscaping.

Exposed aggregate concrete and white granite.

At the end of September, parts of the garden . . .

were absolutely frothy.

The plants have specific relationships to the life cycles of eastern U.S. butterflies.

In my captions, I haven’t included many plant labels, because I didn’t take very good notes during my visit. I was depending on a list of plants at the S.I. gardens website, but, unfortunately, it seems to have been removed for the moment. However, there are some recommendations in this Smithsonian brochure, and there’s additional information here at the Smithsonian gardens blog.

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On the same day that I walked by the White House, I visited the Smithsonian Institution’s Heirloom Garden at the American History Museum and its Butterfly Garden beside the Natural History Museum to see how they look in early spring.

In the American History Museum entrance planter, yellow predominates, not from forsythia, but from the flowers of ornamental kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) and red mustard (Brassica juncea). Here’s the link to how it was planted last summer.

Now it’s filled with dusty miller, violas, and two Brassicas. I did not see any labels, but I’m pretty sure that the lacy white one on the sides is B. oleracea ‘Peacock White’ and the other one with light purple/light green leaves in the center is B. juncea ‘Red (or Ruby) Streaks,’ a mustard mizuna.

The museum’s big blue pots are also planted in purple kale (I think it may be B. oleracea ‘Peacock Red’) and violas. (You can click on any photo to enlarge it.)

At the Mall entrance to the Butterfly Garden, below, various Brassicas stood out, along with yellow tulips and violas.

To scroll through larger versions of all the photos above, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on the first thumbnail in the gallery.

ADDENDUM: In Paris, in March, I spotted some lovely flower beds on the Champs Elysees planted only with various-colored primroses and regularly interspersed tall flowering ornamental kale (something like B. oleracea ‘Redbor’). Unfortunately, I was on a bus and couldn’t get a picture.

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On a hot day in early August, I visited the Heirloom Garden of the National Museum of American History* and took a lot of photos, but because of our move, I never had time to post them. Now that it is seed-ordering time in the U.S., I thought they might be inspirational.

The south side of the Museum of American History and the Washington Monument.

The garden — huge, raised planters, all the way around the museum building — contains a mix of open-pollinated plants cultivated in America prior to 1950 (heirlooms). The plantings are anchored by crape myrtles and a variety of shrubs.

The colorful annuals, perennials, bulbs, and herbs are all so familiar, but the combinations are often surprising. It’s a splendid ode to the flower gardens of our grandparents.

The museum pipes in a selection of American music from speakers set in the planters (in fake rocks). Normally, I would find this annoying, but in the already noisy, wide open site, it actually drew me in to the garden and enhanced the experience. And their selection is excellent — folk, jazz, blues, musicals. The planters are raised about 3′, which also helps the plants compete for attention in the immense space.

By late summer, the flowers were being allowed to grow a little leggy and fade naturally, which added to the various forms and tones of the groupings.

*The Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., has eight beautiful gardens (ten if you count the inner courtyards of the Freer Gallery and Museum of American Art).